Advertising 7

Journal of Food Products Marketing, 21:141–159, 2015 Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 1045-4446 print/1540-4102 online DOI: 10.1080/10454446.2013.843482

Ethics in Food Advertising to Children in India—A Parental Perspective

RAGHBIR SINGH and PAVLEEN SONI University Business School, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, India

Marketers are seen to bombard children with advertisements for unhealthy foods using sophisticated promotion techniques that have serious negative effects on health and overall well-being of children. So parents try to mediate children’s exposure to media content and call for governmental regulations in an attempt to shield them. The extent to which they mediate further determines whether they contemplate food advertisements as being ethical or unethical. Therefore, the present study tries to uncover the antecedents to ethical versus unethical perceptions of Indian par- ents about food advertisements directed at children. No study, to the best of the researchers’ knowledge, has been conducted so far in India in this regard. Using binary logistic regression with moth- ers, it is found that the mothers who view food advertisements as unethical report their children to watch fewer hours of TV dur- ing weekdays and hold negative attitudes toward advertising to children. These mothers, however, do not feel that the government needs to impose restrictions on food advertisements aired on TV since they themselves indulge in mediation of TV advertising as a general parenting responsibility. The implications of the article are finally discussed.

KEYWORDS children, food advertising, ethics, India

INTRODUCTION

Ethical concerns are raised about advertising foods to children. They can be attributed to the reason that children form a category of special audience. For example, children traverse through stages of cognitive development that

Address correspondence to Pavleen Soni, University Business School, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, India 143005. E-mail: [email protected]

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are associated with understanding of media content (John, 1999). They lack experience and possess limited capacity to assess the credibility of mes- sages received from the media (Boush et al., 1994; John, 1999; Buijzen & Valkenburg, 2003). Therefore, their needs and abilities have to be thoroughly understood at the time of framing ad messages (International Chamber of Commerce [ICC], 2012). On the part of marketers, TV food advertisements are aired very frequently (Adams et al., 2009). Most of the advertised foods are unhealthy as they contain high levels of fat/sugar/salt and lack essen- tial nutrients (Stitt & Kunkel, 2008). Heavy exposure to these advertisements influences children’s desire for those foods and also affects overall food consumption behavior (Livingstone, 2005; Cairns et al., 2009; Mittal et al., 2010). So children eat more of energy-dense advertised foods than the non-advertised healthy foods while watching TV (Matheson et al., 2004). Increased consumption of advertised unhealthy foods is associated with many physiological and psychological problems in children such as obe- sity, stroke, hypertension, aggression, and fear. The incidence of these diseases is rising in Indian children (Sharma et al., 2007; Kotian et al., 2010). Nonetheless, instead of providing factual information about nutrient content in foods, marketers focus on emotional appeals such as fun, fantasy, and humor to target children (Harker et al., 2007; Page & Brewster, 2007; Cairns et al., 2009).

Pomeranz (2010) pointed out that

Food and beverage marketing practices are misleading and deceptive when directed at young children. Children do not have the ability to differentiate between puffery and fact and cannot understand that what they are receiving is commercial speech intended to persuade them. Such communications are a misleading way to purpose a commercial transaction to them and undermine a cleanly functioning free market economy. (p. 109)

This implies that there is need for caution when appealing to the imaginative capabilities of younger children. Witkowski (2007) put forth that children in developing countries are bombarded with marketing strategies much as it is done for Western children. But at the same time, the reality that advertising plays a natural and integral part of any child’s intellectual growth and the need to ensure that children understand the reality of the world in which they live entail that suitable actions are devised (Goldberg et al., 1978; Nathanson, 1999; Belch et al., 2005). As parents are interested in the overall well-being of their children, they are expected to play a pivotal role in protecting them. However, if they think about the need for regulation, they would view food advertisements as unethical. More so, they are unlikely to question adver- tising practices if they feel that food advertisements are ethically directed at children. Therefore, it is pertinent to uncover the antecedents to ethical ver- sus unethical dispositions of parents, and the present article seeks to make an attempt in this direction.

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LITERATURE REVIEW

A review of some select studies related to food advertising to children, parental concerns and mediation of TV viewing, type of mediation, and other related variables is presented here.

Children have been found to view TV for more than 2 hours a day on average during weekdays, and the TV viewing time increases on weekends (Gortmaker et al., 1996; Hardy et al., 2006; Scragg et al., 2006; Mittal et al., 2010; Ramirez et al., 2011; Singh & Kaur, 2012). A large number of food advertisements are seen to be aired on children’s networks/programs and during the times when children watch TV (Byrd-Bredbenner & Grasso, 1999; Consumers International, 2004; Neville et al., 2005; Arnas, 2006; Hardy et al., 2006; Kelly et al., 2007; Stitt & Kunkel, 2008; Jenkin et al., 2009; Adams et al., 2009). In addition to this, most of the advertised foods are generally nutrient- poor, junk, or unhealthy as they contain high proportions of fat/sugar/salt (Kotz & Story, 1994; Morgan et al., 2008; Stitt & Kunkel, 2008) rather than foods that promote a healthy lifestyle (such as fruits and vegetables). A higher number of hours of weekly TV viewing is found to be significantly related to more positive attitude toward fizzy drinks, chocolates, and fast foods (Dixon et al., 2007), and also stronger liking, concurrent requests, and increased consumption of junk foods in children (Coon et al., 2001; Arnas, 2006; Chamberlain et al., 2006; Utter et al., 2006; Wiecha, 2006; Fiates et al., 2008; Miryala, 2011; Ramirez et al., 2011). Chamberlain et al. (2006) noted that the children’s screen media time was significantly associated with concurrent requests for advertised foods and drinks. The future requests for advertised foods/drinks are also considerably related to total TV viewing and total screen media exposure. Arnas (2006) also reported that children ask their parents to buy advertised foods (mainly sweetened products), and some of them even cried and pestered their parents in the supermarket. Younger children’s food behavior was found to be most affected as it considerably led to unhealthy food consumption in them. In Kelly et al.’s (2009) study, a majority of parents reported that their children always or sometimes asked for food products that they had seen advertised on television.

To combat the negative effects of exposure of children to TV advertising, parents try to mediate TV viewing by children. Parental mediation of food advertising to children on TV is largely under-researched. Researchers have assessed occurrence of TV mediation, generally, in home settings (Bijmolt et al., 1998; Valkenburg et al., 1999; Buijzen & Valkenburg, 2003; Barkin et al., 2006). When parents try to mediate TV viewing, they commonly indulge in active mediation or restrictive mediation. Active mediation refers to discus- sion of media content with children, which may include positive as well as negative aspects of media. Restrictive mediation refers to control of content or frequency of TV viewing. Parents are able to reduce negative conse- quences of exposure to advertisements by active mediation as discussing

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program content with children helps the child to evaluate the program and stimulates children to learn more from TV (Wiman, 1983; Bijmolt et al., 1998; Valkenburg et al., 1999; Buijzen & Valkenburg, 2003, 2005). On the other hand, parents who resort to restrictive mediation tend to reduce the time children spend viewing TV (Van den Bulck & Van den Bergh, 2000). Barkin et al. (2006) found that a majority of parents (59%) used multiple mediation approaches to reduce children’s TV viewing time. Their study revealed that both instructive (active) and restrictive mediation approaches had positive associations with increased awareness about negative media effects, but a decrease in awareness happened for parents who allowed unlimited view- ing for children with parents (co-viewing). Thus, it was concluded that when children watch a lot of TV with a parent (social co-viewing), limiting viewing time/content for children becomes problematic. The only strategy associated with age of the child was instructive (active) mediation and was noted to be used more often with younger children.

As regards mediation of food advertisements, Buijzen (2009) in a diary study of 234 parents of 4- to 12-year-old children in the Netherlands inves- tigated how different styles of advertising mediation (active vs. restrictive) moderated the relation between children’s advertising exposure and their consumption of advertised energy dense food products. It was found that active mediation was considerably more effective in reducing advertising effects than restrictive mediation in younger (4–8 years old) as well as older children (9–12 years old). However, among younger children, restrictive mediation was also effective in reducing the relation between advertising and food consumption. Therefore, it was concluded that parents can reduce the impact of food advertising on children’s energy-dense food consump- tion with critical and open discussion about advertising and control and rule making about consumption. Restrictions of advertising exposure were effec- tive among preschool and early elementary school children, but not among older children.

Mediation of TV advertising depends on the attitude of parents them- selves about TV advertising in general and the advertising directed at children. Wiman (1983) and Rose et al. (1998) found that mothers who held more negative attitudes toward advertising exercised stricter controls on their child’s TV viewing behavior. Kapoor and Verma (2005) reported that children’s exposure to TV advertisements in India was, in fact, deter- mined, to a large extent, by parents’ control of their viewing. If the parents perceived influence of advertisements as negative on their child, they placed greater restrictions on TV viewing. They also decided about the program their child should watch and taught him or her about the artificiality of TV advertisements. They further educated their child about TV advertisements as could help him or her draw relevant information from advertisements to result in healthy buying habits. Mukherji (2005) found that Indian mothers held a positive attitude toward TV advertising to children and were of the

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view that advertisements provided information to children. Chan and McNeal (2003), in a study of Chinese parents, found that parents held negative atti- tude toward advertising and expressed advertisements to be manipulative and as not telling the truth. Mothers were found to hold more negative attitude than fathers. Parents of younger children also held more negative attitudes toward advertising. They also held negative attitudes toward chil- dren’s advertising and expressed concerns about the undesirable influence of food advertisements on children’s eating habits.

Choice of a mediation strategy is seen to vary across some demographic variables. For example, highly educated parents are more likely to restrict TV viewing (Wiman, 1983; Valkenburg et al., 1999; Nathanson, 2001). Parents with younger children are seen to mediate more compared to parents of older children (Valkenburg et al., 1999; Barkin et al., 2006). Parents have been reported to use instructive mediation more often with younger children (Barkin et al., 2006). High socioeconomic status is also associated with higher mediation (Wiman, 1983).

Besides mediating children’s exposure to TV, the parents are seen to use rules for TV viewing with their children. Jordan et al. (2006) put forth that the rules set forth for TV viewing for children fall into four categories: con- tent restriction, behavior contingency, time restriction, and access restriction. In content restriction, parents limit access to only specific shows, channels, or types of programs or forbid children from watching certain types of pro- grams or channels. In such a situation, they ask children to seek permission before changing channels or before watching a particular type of show. Behavior contingency implies that parents use TV viewing as a reward or as being contingent on completing tasks, such as household chores or home- work. They also restrict TV viewing as a punishment for tasks not done, for misbehavior or for doing poorly in school. Parents also impose time restric- tions on how much time children can watch TV. Last, parents restrict access to TV by not putting a TV in the child’s bedroom. Spurrier et al. (2008) found that parents who used rules for TV viewing for their children allowed less screen time on TV and monitored TV viewing by their children. Andaya et al. (2010) concluded that children whose TV was never on or rarely on during mealtimes were less likely to consume soda and chips.

When parents feel that government should also intervene to control the magnitude of impact of TV exposures to food advertisements on children, they express the need for codes/voluntary regulations by food companies or strict regulations to the extent of imposition of a complete ban on TV food advertisements directed at children. For example, Kelly et al. (2009) found that 82% of parents were concerned about TV advertising. Morley et al. (2008) found a widespread parental concern about food advertising and strong support for tighter restrictions. In line with this, Miryala (2011) found that a large majority of parents (92%) in India felt the need for regulat- ing food advertisements. They expressed that advertisements for unhealthy

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foods should either be banned or the ad message should include warn- ings against excessive consumption. A small proportion of parents also felt that food advertisements targeting children should be completely banned. Similarly, in Mittal et al.’s (2010) study, the Indian parents lamented that cur- rent regulations governing television food advertising were not adequately enforced. They wanted to see an overall reduction in the volume of food directed at children and an increase in promoting healthy foods. Parents expressed mixed views about banning food directed at children. For tele- vision food advertising to be health-enhancing for children, they suggested the need for restrictions on advertising practices, tighter enforcement of exist- ing regulations, and an increase in healthy food. Nefat and Benazic (2011) revealed that parents wanted all advertisements for unhealthy foods to be banned, or at least prohibited, for children less than 12 years of age. Singh and Kaur (2012) similarly found that mothers in India also felt that nutrition- poor foods should not be advertised to children. They expressed the need for self-regulation of food advertisements by the industry and wanted that the government should monitor and restrict food advertising to children on television. Parents in both the studies, Nefat and Benazic (2011) and Singh and Kaur (2012), thought that food companies should not use fun appeals or promotional characters to advertise unhealthy/junk foods to children.

The foregoing review suggests that ethical versus unethical perceptions of parents for food advertisements would be influenced by a repertoire of variables such as the frequency of food advertisements and their effect on diet patterns of children, parents’ attitude toward advertising, mediation, and governmental regulations and the interplay of demographic variables. However, no study so far has comprehensively taken note of all the variables. In this light, the present study makes an attempt in this direction.

DATABASE AND RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Data were collected from four cities of Punjab—Amritsar, Jalandhar, and Ludhiana and its capital city of Chandigarh—during the period November 2010 to June 2011. Three cities were chosen to represent the three regions of Punjab—Amritsar (Majha), Jalandhar (Doaba), and Ludhiana (Malwa). The capital city was chosen as it is more cosmopolitan. The mothers were the basic sampling unit for the present study as they are seen to be the pri- mary caregivers for children. Schools were selected (randomly) out of all schools in the city that enrolled students with various socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. Parents of children in eight schools (two from each city), were approached through the schools. The children were asked to take the questionnaire home and get it filled out by their mother. In case two children were studying in the same school, the mother was requested to fill out the questionnaire keeping in mind the child who had brought it.

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Of the 600 questionnaires that were distributed to children, 509 (84.83%) questionnaires were found to be complete and appropriate for analysis. This resulted in a total sample of 509 mothers of children in the age category 5–15 years (51.27% boys).

In the sample, mothers from all educational levels were represented, although most of them were relatively well educated: 40.1% were graduates and 40.7% were postgraduates. Monthly family incomes ranged from less than Rupee 30,000 per month (8.9% of the sample) to more than Rupee 40,000 (26.5% of the sample) per month. More than one half of the sample of mothers was working (57.4%), and most of them worked for 6 days in a week, 6–8 hours every day on average. The children came from a diverse set of families: 44% came from extended families (husband, wife, children, and paternal grandparents), 38% came from nuclear families, and 18% hailed from joint families (nuclear family, paternal grandparents, and aunts, uncles, and cousins).

Data were collected through a structured, pre-tested, and non-disguised questionnaire. To develop a list of information items for framing the questionnaire, previous literature on attitude of parents toward advertis- ing in general, children’s advertising, and food advertising to children was reviewed. Experts in the area were also consulted. The discussions led to some valuable and meaningful modifications. The preliminary draft of the questionnaire was pre-tested through personal interviews with 80 moth- ers. This helped in improving the questionnaire. With a few deletions and additions, the final questionnaire was developed.

Three statements were used from Crosby and Grossbart (1984) to measure attitudes of mothers toward children’s advertising. The interitem reli- ability (Cronbach’s alpha) for this measure is 0.688. To uncover the attitude of mothers toward food advertising on TV directed at children, a set of 20 state- ments was prepared. The statements were devised on the basis of a review of recently published review reports (e.g., Hastings et al., 2003; Kunkel et al., 2004; Cairns et al., 2009). Literature published by other researchers such as Arnas (2006); Kelly et al. (2007); Page and Brewster (2007); Buijzen, Bomhof, and Schuurman (2008); Kelly et al. (2008); and Morgan et al. (2008) were also carefully reviewed to identify issues related to food advertising. The literature review highlighted that concerns about food advertising to children on TV related to high frequency of food advertisements, use of promotional meth- ods such as cartoon/spokescharacters, fun appeals and emotive tactics, poor nutritional content of advertised foods, vulnerability of children to adver- tising gimmicks, followed by problems faced by parents due to increased number of requests for advertised foods, pestering, and the difficulties faced by parents in ensuring good health of their children. The attitude of mothers toward food advertising on TV was measured on a 5-point scale: 1 = strongly agree and 5 = strongly disagree. (A list of these 20 statements is provided in the Appendix.)

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TABLE 1 Description of the Binary Variable

Variable N t-value

View food advertisements as unethical = 1 283 − View food advertisements as ethical = 0 226 22.808∗ ∗Significant at the 1% level.

To classify the mothers into two categories on the basis of their atti- tude toward food advertisements directed at children, the aggregate score of each respondent on these 20 statements was calculated. The aggregate score of a respondent moving toward the higher end on a continuum between 20 and 100 spells out the attitude of mothers toward food advertising to children. This aggregate score was used to estimate the Z scores for which each respondent has the same mean (mean = 0) and standard deviation (SD = 1). Positive Z score value indicates that mothers have rated it above the norm, while a negative value indicates that it is below the norm (Verma & Larson, 2002); norm in the present composition divides the mothers into two categories on the basis of their attitude toward food advertisements. Accordingly, mothers with positive value were classified as finding food advertising to children as ethical, whereas those having a negative score were classified as mothers finding food advertisements directed at children as unethical (Table 1). The results show that 283 mothers embrace food advertisements directed at children on TV as ethical. Whereas 226 mothers, a closely similar number, view the food advertisements shown on TV as unethical. The independent samples t-test was applied to identify whether a significant difference exists between the two sets of mothers with regard to their attitude toward food advertisements. The higher t-value of indepen- dent sample t-test shows that the two sets of mothers, i.e., mothers who view food advertisements as ethical and those who view them as unethical, differ significantly at 1% level of significance (see Table 1).

Data Analysis

The factors influencing attitude of mothers toward food advertising to chil- dren have been examined with the use of a qualitative response model, i.e., binary logit regression model. The logit regression model has been pre- ferred over the ordinary least squares to compute the estimates for the binary choice model due to the violation of certain assumptions of classical regres- sion model such as non-normality of the disturbances and heteroscedastic variance of the disturbances. SPSS 17.0 version has been used for analysis.

The present section, with the help of qualitative binary model, makes an attempt to identify the determinants that have a significant impact on the attitude toward food advertising to children.

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BINARY LOGIT ANALYSIS

To achieve the above-mentioned objective, the variables affecting attitude of mothers toward food advertisements directed at children were selected. They included hours of TV viewing during weekdays and weekends (for children), frequency of foods found advertised, effect of food ad exposure on actual eating patterns of children, mediation of TV advertising, restric- tions and rules set by mothers for TV viewing, negative attitude toward children advertising, and attitude toward regulation. Demographic variables such as age of the child, number of children in the family, age of mother and father, work status of mother, number of daily working hours for mother, occupation of father, education of mother and father, and monthly family income were also considered. Out of these variables, only those variables were finally included as the independent variables for the binary logit mod- eling that were statistically significant as per the chi-square test. As number of children in the family did not show a significant chi-square value, it was dropped from analysis. More so, when collinearity diagnostics were carried out, it was observed that age of mother and father showed overlapping condition indices. As mothers’ reports have been sought in the study about impact of TV food advertisements on children, the mothers’ age was retained and age of father was dropped. A similar observation was made for educa- tion of mother and father, so education of mother was retained for analysis. On executing binary logit, it was observed that work status of mother did not turn out to be a significant predictor of attitude of mothers toward food advertisements directed at children. As work status of mother was partially being accounted for by number of working hours for the mother, it was also dropped from analysis. When the logit analysis was rerun, the classification accuracy improved. Finally, logit was run with 15 predictor variables. The dependent and independent variables of the model are given in Table 2.

Each slope coefficient in this equation is a partial slope coefficient, which measures the changes in the estimated logit for a unit change in the value of the given variable (regressor) holding other variables constant. The low log likelihood ratio (Table 3) shows that the model fits the data and is appropriate for the purpose of identifying the factors that determine attitude of mothers toward food advertising to children by the nonsignificant value of Hosmer and Lemeshow test (Meyers et al., 2006, p. 239). To assess the clas- sification accuracy of the model, leave one out method of cross-validation has also been used (Table 4).

The overall hit ratio, i.e., the number of cases correctly classified, is 71.7%, whereas for the cross-validated group it is 69.4%. The classification accuracy, which is at least 25% more than the value of maximum chance criterion and proportional chance criterion and the significant t-value (Hair et al., 2006), indicate that the classification matrix is statistically better than the chance, and the model is acceptable in terms of classification accuracy.

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TABLE 2 Dependent and Independent Variables of the Model

Attitude toward food advertisements directed at children Li Hours of TV viewing during weekdays X1 Hours of TV viewing during weekends X2 Frequency of food advertisements X3 Effect of TV advertisements on diet patterns of children X4 Need to put restrictions on TV viewing by children X5 Rules for TV viewing X6 Negative attitude toward children advertising X7 Mediation of TV advertising X8 Government regulation of food advertising on TV X9 Age of child X10 Age of mother X11 Number of daily hours of work for mother X12 Occupation of father X13 Education of mother X14 Monthly income of family X15

Notes. Codes used: Attitude toward food advertisements directed at children (ethical = 1, unethical = 0), Need to put restrictions on TV viewing by children (yes = 1, No = 0), Rules for TV viewing (yes = 1, no = 0), Education of mother (graduation = 1, else = 0), occupation of father (Service = 1, else = 0). Li = Pi /(1-Pi) = f(X1, X2,X3, X4,X5,X6, . . . , X i) where i = I,2,3, . . . ., k. Here, Li = dependent variable. Xi = predictor or independent variables.

DISCUSSION

The above model brings to the fore that the mothers who view food adver- tisements as unethical do not feel positively about strong governmental regulations of food advertising (from Table 3, odds ratio less than 1). The relationship is significant at the 1% level. They also perceive that food adver- tisements on TV do not have much effect on diet patterns of their children. These mothers display negative attitudes toward children advertising and report their children to watch fewer hours of TV during weekdays. The rela- tionships are significant at the 5% level. A positive association between age of mothers and unethical view toward advertisements directed at children is further witnessed. This relationship is also significant at the 5% level.

Furthermore, the results show that mothers who actively indulge in mediation of TV advertising and set rules for TV viewing think that food advertisements on TV are unethically directed at children. Similarly, bet- ter educated mothers, mothers who work for fewer hours daily, and those hailing from lower-income families tend to share an unethical view toward advertisements directed at children. These relationships are, however, not statistically significant.

Thus, the present study brings out that mothers who work for long hours do not view food advertisements directed at children as unethical probably because they do not face direct and immediate requests for foods arising out of exposure to advertisements. But mothers in lower-income families

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TABLE 3 Logit Regression Coefficients of the Variables Affecting Attitude of Mothers Toward Food Advertisements Directed at Children

CI

Predictors β p value Odds ratio lower upper

Constant 4.871 .000 130.514 Hours of TV viewing during weekdays −.211 .030 .810 .670 .979 Hours of TV viewing during weekends .015 .860 1.015 .859 1.199 Frequency of food advertisements −.180 .100 .835 .674 1.035 Effect of TV advertisements on diet

patterns of children −.897 .000 .408 .299 .555

Need to put restrictions on TV viewing by children

.136 .689 1.146 .589 2.227

Rules for TV viewing .310 .200 1.364 .849 2.192 Negative attitude toward children

advertising .278 .011 1.320 1.065 1.637

Mediation of TV advertising .021 .922 1.021 .676 1.541 Government regulation of food

advertising on TV −.930 .000 .395 .275 .566

Age of child .022 .681 1.022 .920 1.137 Age of mother .046 .083 1.047 .994 1.102 Number of daily hours of work for

mother −.028 .377 .972 .913 1.035

Occupation of father .063 .775 1.065 .692 1.637 Education of mother .014 .952 1.014 .644 1.598 Monthly income of family −.003 .472 .997 .990 1.005 Log likelihood = −568.901, Cox and Snell R2 = 0.226, Hosmer and Lemeshow test = 1.968. Li = 4.871−0.211 X1+ 0.015 X2 −0.180 X3 −0.897 X4+ 0.31 X5+ 0.136 X6+ 0.022 X7+ 0.046 X8 −0.028 X9 −0.283 X10 −0.003 X11+ 0.278 X12+ 0.014 X13+ 0.021 X14 −0.93X15.

TABLE 4 Classification Results

Predicted membership

Groups Unethical Ethical Total

Original sample Group 1 228 55 283

80.6 19.4 100.0 Group 2 89 137 226

39.4 60.6 100.0

Cross-validated sample Group 1 221 62 283

78.1 21.9 100.0 Group 2 94 132 226

41.6 58.4 100.0

Notes. Bold figures represent percentages. 71.7% of original grouped cases correctly classified. 69.4% of cross-validated grouped cases correctly classified. Proportional Chance Criterion: 49.61%. Maximum Chance Criterion: 55.59%. t = 8.795 (significant at 1% level).

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perceive food advertisements on TV to be more unethical because increased exposure of children to these advertisements persuades them to like and to request the products (Goldberg et al., 1978). As all requests are difficult and unwise for parents to honor, a rejection increases chances of conflicts between parents and children (Atkin, 1978; Kunkel et al., 2004). Further, repeated requests or the nag factor irritates parents and creates a feeling that TV advertisements are solely responsible for the entire situation.

As age of the mother progresses, she experiences the effect of both direct as well as indirect influence of TV advertisements on children. As food advertisements influence food choice behavior of children, they directly make food purchase decisions/purchases themselves and also influence food consumption decisions for the family. The extent of media influence (from TV) is much more in comparison to parental influence (Cardoza, 2002; Ozdogan & Atlintas, 2010). But, at the same time, older children view adver- tisements less favorably and are skeptical about them (Boush et al., 1994). Therefore, mothers also express that personal preferences of children pre- vail and food advertisements on TV do not have much effect on overall diet patterns of their children.

Mothers in the present sample do not feel positively about governmen- tal regulations of food advertising targeted at children. This is true in view of lack of legislation in this regard in India. More so, Indian mothers have been found to hold negative to neutral views about advertising to children (Singh & Kaur, 2012), and so, as a general parenting responsibility, they decide about the program their child should watch, teach him or her about the artificiality of TV advertisements, and/or set rules for TV viewing (Cardoza, 2002; Kapoor & Verma, 2005; Singh & Kaur, 2012). In line with this, Verma and Larson (2002) have also noted previously that watching TV in India is typically a family activity. Parents and children watch TV together (co-view), or parents’ supervision and influence is likely even if children watch alone. Therefore, parents impose restrictions on TV viewing by children when they think that food advertising can have negative effects on children. The present study also highlights that even when the mother thinks that food advertise- ments are unethical, they allow their children to watch TV for long hours on weekends. This may be because parents feel that watching TV is fun, relax- ing, or keeps children safely occupied while parents complete their chores (Jordan et al., 2006).

Therefore, on the basis of findings of the present study, it is recom- mended that parents must observe the extent to which their children are exposed to food advertisements. Parents have been noted to monitor the content of TV programs their children watch. But the present study puts forth that parents do not tend to note the frequency with which food adver- tisements are aired even when they hold unethical dispositions toward food advertisements. Thus, it is important for them to delve into the nature of advertisements their children most frequently watch on TV. It is further

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concluded that parents, irrespective of whether food advertising is noted to be ethical or unethical, generally mediate TV viewing by children to protect their well-being. In other words, the perception of food advertising being unethical does not trigger mediational tendencies in parents. This implies that parents are truly aware of effects of food advertising on children. They do not probably think that negative effects of incessant advertising can be so serious that they would affect their children in the long run or the society as a whole for which actions must be initiated at their own/community/national level. Or they accept their parenting responsibility to tackle this problem at their own level by acquiescing that marketing actions cannot be controlled. Rather they should seek lessons from parents in other countries who are try- ing to mitigate ill effects of food advertising by partnering with marketers (Childers & Hoy, 2012). For marketers, the present study highlights that although parents in India do not recognize the negative effects of food adver- tising on children, they also do not hold a positive view of TV advertising and possess strong mediational and parenting tendencies. Their activities would not continue undeterred as the parents would, in due course, identify that they must actively shield their children against incessant food advertis- ing. The government is also closely monitoring their activities. As a result, food marketing companies are jumping into self-regulation (Mukherji, 2010), and draft regulations are also being proposed. The marketers must realize their responsibility in protecting the well-being of children by modifying the nutritional content of foods to make them healthier and by advertising in a more responsible manner. Else, it would be almost impossible to sustain in the otherwise promising Indian market.

LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

● The study is restricted to the state of Punjab and Chandigarh, so the results of the study may not be truly generalizable.

● The study is confined to seven food products only and does not investi- gate ethical perceptions and mediational tendencies of parents across other food categories.

● The present study uses self-reports of mothers. Actual meditational tenden- cies have not been observed; they are reported. Therefore, a possibility of recall errors cannot be avoided.

DIRECTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

● Since food advertisers continuously identify and adopt the most sophisti- cated ways of targeting children, the study can be replicated with newer

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forms of media for advertising foods to children, such as the Internet (viral marketing), in Indian settings.

● While advertising foods to children, many promotional elements are used to influence children. There is a need to investigate the parental awareness of the use of creative elements and ethical/unethical perceptions about the impact of food promotions on children.

● As a large chunk of the Indian population resides in rural areas; factors specific to rural settings must be explored and comparisons be made with the urban sample to uncover differences, if any, in perceptions of parents regarding food advertising to children.

FUNDING

The authors are thankful for the grant provided by AICTE, New Delhi (India), to conduct the study.

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Ethics in Food Advertising to Children in India 159

APPENDIX

List of Statements Depicting Attitude Toward Food Advertisements

Statements

S1 Children watch food advertisements with a lot of interest. S2 Children do not understand that food advertisements only intend to sell. S3 There are too many food advertisements on TV in programs aimed at children. S4 Advertisements depict cartoon characters/celebrities to promote low nutrition foods. S5 Children cannot differentiate between the ad and the TV program. S6 Children feel very happy to see the cartoon/ characters associated with the food

product in the ad, even when they may not like the actual product. S7 They do not understand that food products mostly advertised, such as snacks, are

unhealthy and should not be consumed regularly. S8 Children believe every claim made in the food ad. S9 As a parent it is difficult to teach good eating habits as children want more of

unhealthy advertised foods S10 Unhealthy advertised foods are generally sold by adding a gift to the pack/giving

some percent extra free. S11 There are too many advertisements for unhealthy foods (such as chips, soft drinks,

fast food restaurants) S12 Too frequent advertisements are something that concerns me. S13 Advertised foods are usually unhealthy/high in fat, salt, or sugar/highly processed. S14 Advertisements create a desire/expectation/demand for such foods. S15 The advertisements generally highlight cartoon characters/use popular celebrities that

push children to buy even if they do not like the food item. S16 Advertisements use inappropriate cool/fun/attractive concepts to influence children. S17 Taste alone is focused upon for unhealthy foods; their nutritional value is never

highlighted or narrated clearly. S18 Advertisements miss information about poor nutritional quality of foods. S19 Advertisements use toys/freebies to manipulate children. S20 On seeing the ad, children are persuaded to buy advertised unhealthy foods.

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